From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
The Federal Government has said that the children of late former Super Eagles captain and coach, Stephen Keshi will be well taken care of.
Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung who disclosed this in Asaba yesterday, said government has not forgotten about the late Eagles handler who won the African Cup of Nations in 1994 as captain and 2013 as coach.
Dalung told newsmen after a courtesy call on Governor Ifeanyi Okowa that due to paucity of funds during Keshi’s final burial ceremonies, the Federal Government delegated its big brother role to the Delta State Government.
“Of course, when we had the challenge of the paucity of funds which even characterized our preparation for the Olympics.
We engaged the Delta state government to say, look we are incapacitated by funds but you can play the role of a big brother for us.
“When we are able to get funds approved for us, we would be investing on the children and the family of Keshi because the man has gone and left a very great family.
“Whatever the federal government approves would be elaborately invested on the children so that it can sustain them instead of going to organize a burial for people to come and eat and drink. That was the wisdom in which we engaged the state government,” he said.
Dalung said he was in Asaba to solicit the support of the state government for the National Youth Games which comes up on September 22.
He said Governor Okowa responded positively “to our advocacy to support, encourage and sustain grassroots sports development through the instrumentality of the National Youth Games.”
According to him, the governor emphasized the need for sports development by sustaining the processes rather than concentrating more on competitions.
“We intend to re-focus our energy towards grassroots sports development when we will preview the committee report which we have received and start to implement which by content focused more on the policy of developing grassroots sports and sustaining it,” he added.